On January 15, 2019, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that independent contractors who work in the transportation industry may not be forced into mandatory arbitration. The decision will allow contractors to defend their rights in court.

The case, New Prime Inc. v. Oliveria, involved a dispute between a trucking company and one of its drivers. When the driver, Dominic Oliveria, began working for New Prime, he was required to complete 10,000 miles of hauling freight for free. Then, as a trainee, he had to complete an additional 30,000 miles for four dollars an hour. Once he became a driver, he was deemed a contractor and was forced to lease his own truck and pay for his own gas. This would not have been the case if the company had deemed him an employee.

Drivers are often familiar with road safety, but may neglect to provide that same care and awareness to their tires. When a vehicle doesn’t have the correct tires or aren’t properly cared for, there’s an increased chance that the tires could cause an accident on the road. A tire failure while driving often causes severe injuries because it’s difficult to maintain control of the vehicle.

On December 26, 2017, an unidentified patient was accidentally injected with a paralyzing anesthetic at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. The hospital is under investigation for not being upfront with the Davison County Medical Examiner about the deadly medication error.

The patient was being treated at Vanderbilt for a subdural hematoma, also known as bleeding in the brain, and was suffering from headaches and vision loss. Even with those symptoms, the patient was awake, alert, and improving.

There are a number of factors that play into why an automobile crash happens. While we most often think of driver negligence, there are instances where road conditions or ambiguous traffic signs can contribute to an accident. Whether you mostly drive around town or have a long, daily highway commute to work, it’s important to be aware of where the most dangerous spots are for travel. This awareness may help you avoid situations that could result in a wreck.

It can be a frightening and overwhelming experience to learn your baby is ill or has been diagnosed with a medical condition. There are likely to be doctor’s visits, tests, and treatments, and it’s normal to have questions regarding how the illness or condition arose. New babies can suffer from two different types of medical problems: birth injuries and birth defects. While those terms are sometimes used interchangeably, it’s crucial to understand the difference between the two.

Understanding Birth Defects

A birth defect is a disease or medical condition that develops while a child is still growing in the womb. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), birth defects are common. Every four and a half minutes, a baby is born with a birth defect in the United States. That means that nearly 120,000, or one in 33, babies are affected by this issue every year.

These conditions are structural changes that can affect how any part of the body looks, works, or both. The severity depends greatly on the defect. In some cases, quality of life or lifespan can be impacted. Most birth defects are found within the first year of life or before birth. While some may be easy to see, like a physical deformity, special tests are needed to detect heart defects or hearing loss, for example.

Most birth defects form in the first three months of pregnancy; however, some can occur in the latter six months. In many cases, a birth defect is completely outside you or your doctor’s control.

Just because a lawyer is famous, doesn’t mean you’ll get the results you want. Andrew Milder learned this the hard way. He was wrongfully arrested and hired Hollywood attorney, Shawn Holley. Holley has a client list full of celebrities. She was on the defense team for O.J. Simpson, represented Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton, Justin Bieber, Kim Kardashian West, and Kanye West. She accompanied Kim Kardashian West to the White House when she spoke with the president about Alice Marie Johnson, a first-time drug offender who was serving a life sentence.

But Milder’s experience as Holley’s client in 2012 wasn’t a good one. His retainer agreement was $25,000, plus costs for a private investigator who would find more evidence for Andrew’s case.

The HCR ManorCare nursing home in Pottsville, PA was investigated by state inspectors in 2017. What they found was not the environment of a caring, healthy, and well-run nursing home. Instead, the residents who lived there were severely neglected.

Neglect included failure to maintain resident hygiene, as shown by a disabled man who had long, dirty fingernails. The nursing home didn’t have enough staff to properly respond to the call buttons from the residents’ bedsides. It was common for residents to regularly soil themselves because it took too long for staff to get there to help them go to the bathroom.

There was one instance where a woman, who was dying of uterine cancer, was bruised because she was left on a bedpan for too long. A man was given too many opioids and had to go to the hospital. An unsupervised bus trip with one staff member in charge of six residents who needed aid with walking resulted in a resident flipping backward on a wheelchair ramp and had a brain hemorrhage.

On November 14, 2018, the Pennsylvania Board of Examiners of Nursing Home Administrators voted to reduce the number of continuing education credit hours required every two years for licensed nursing home administrators. The Board voted seven to three to reduce the credit hours from 48 to 36.

We understand the importance of spending time with your family and friends during the holidays; but between shopping for presents, baking, decorating, and wrapping, the time can fly by quickly. Before the season is over, check out all that Philadelphia has to offer! There are a number of shows, festivals, and events to attend. If you’re looking for the perfect place to grab a bite to eat or wondering where to shop locally for your gifts, we’ve got info on those places, too.

We are pleased to announce that Attorney Rob Sachs of Shrager & Sachs has written an article titled, “Plaintiff’s Challenges to Pre-Suit, Binding Arbitrations in Nursing Homes,” which has been published by the Pennsylvania Association for Justice. In the article, he addresses two significant days for nursing home residents throughout the state of Pennsylvania, September 27 and 28.

On September 27th, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which administers over $1 trillion of federal reserves, issued final rules that will disallow binding, pre-dispute arbitration clauses in nursing facilities that are federally funded. Unfortunately, the next day, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court stated that it is bound by the US Supreme Court precedent and upheld the arbitration clause that will force separate arbitrations of survival actions that are bound by arbitration clauses and wrongful death action trials.